Monday, November 26, 2012

(See (lower left in picture) that I have not put in its place the wPf4 in the two-mover. Eventually, after several minutes, I thought "this could be solved if it had a wPf4". I looked in the sheet of problems, and there it was!)

The Solving Contest of Attica 2012 took place in Booze Cooperativa (57 Kolokotroni str., Athens) with cooperation of ESSNA (Union of Chess Clubs in Attica) and "Athletic Club Zinon of Glyfada" on Sunday, November 25 afternoon, last 1 hour and 45 minutes (not 2,5 hours as planned). After the contest, in memory of Lorenzo Mabillis poet, fighter and chessplayer, and his heroic death a hundred years ago, started a presentation of facts and pictures of Mabillis, his life and his era.
In the contest six problems should be solved, 12 solvers gave answers, and many other visitors passed and received information.

Winner was Nikos Mendrinos with 24 points (in 30 maximum), second was Leokratis Anemodouras with 20 points, third was John Garoufalidis with 18 points, fourth was Emmanuel Manolas with 16,fifth was Harry Fougiaxis with 15 and in sixth position two solvers, Kostas Kordis and Alexandros Seilemezis with 13.
The compositions were relevant with the work of the pioneer Greek composers of 19th century, Dr D. Melissinos, Joseph Liberalis, Nicolas Miniatis and Lorenzo Mabillis. A musical work was heard again after many years of latency, "Elegy for the death of the great American chessplayer Paul Murphy", composed by the Greek Joseph Liberalis in 1884.

With the first move, White foresees that mate can be achieved whatever the Black plays. Then there are selfblocks, while the black Rook corrects its arrival square trying to defend.Problem of the physician and mathematician Dionyssios Melissinos (1836-1905), 4th prize in the Fourth American Chess Congress 1880, (where the American Sam Loyd took the third prize).

Study by Kyriakos Frangoulis from Nydri (in island Lefkada), published in the German magazine Schach in 1982. Kyriakos Frangoulis was the only Greek composer for chess studies. His first study was published in 1978. At November 22, fifteen years had passed since his death.

Nicolas Miniatis (1860-1943), son of a Greek freight broker, lived in Manchester of England and was top player in the period 1885-1895. He is known for the 1890 match, which lost 4-1, versus the later world champion Lasker.

Problem-636

Sam Loyd (version by Eduard Schildberg)
Chess Monthly, 11/1860

6R1/7q/8/5k2/3K1B2/8/8/8 (3 + 2)

h#3 (Helpmate three-mover)

1.Kf6 Ra8 2.Kg7 Bb8 3.Kh8 Be5#

It is a more economic version of the first helpmate composition of all times, published by the top (till today) composer of chess problems, the American SamLoyd, in the magazine "ChessMonthly" in November 1860.
(The initial problem by Sam Loyd had a black Bishop on h2).

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The important chess composer Dan Meinking died yesterday of heart attack.
An obituary was posted in The Cincinnati Enquirer. RIP Dan.
He had created great chess compositions and other brain games (Alpha Sleuth, Lexmaze).
He liked to work together with other composers (see here the Problem-204).
A collection of his problems is here.

To composer achieves his goal with continuous checks and pins. The pieces have great mobility. There are Switchbacks and Circuits of the pieces. The final mate image is Echo Chameleon (=the bK is mated in a squares of different colours) in Diagonal Mirror position.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

To celebrate Milan’s 75th birthday, StrateGems is announcing a jubilee tourney in the following sections:
Section A - Twomovers, Judge: Vasyl Dyachuk
Section B - Threemovers, Judge: Robert Burger
Section C - Moremovers, Judge: Richard Becker
Section D - Helpmates, Judge: Dan Meinking
Section E - Selfmates, Judge: Petko A. Petkov
The theme for the tourney is free. A special consideration will be given to compositions which show one (or more) of Milan’s favorite themes: Reciprocal Change, Bristol, Novotny and Grimshaw.
Prizes in books and free subscriptions will be given to all prize winners. An electronic version (PDF) of StrateGems, with the tourney results, will be emailed to all tourney participants.
Send to: Mike Prcic Tuzlak@aol.com
Closing date: 31.12.2012

Friday, November 16, 2012

We proceed with 5 more compositions of the Greek problemist Nikos Pergialis, the last rebetis (composer and singer of Rebetiko songs).
Here are three twomovers and two more-movers, one 4-mover and one 6-mover. After the solutions we write the themes in these problems. I say again that he likes compositions with at most 12 pieces (Meredith) and Ideal mates.

Theme Vladimirov : [Two try-moves are also mate-moves in two variations]. They are denoted as Α and Β.Theme Elmgren : [At least three black pieces are defending in tries.]. Here are defending all the black pieces.Theme Option : [The same white piece is making at-least two try-moves and the key-move]. Here, the wQ.Theme Grab : [The defending piece is captured in more than two variations]. Here, the black Knight is captured in three variations.Anti-Quadruple : The black Knight is defending from four positions, with result four different mates. Duel Black - White.

The key creates a Knight-Bishop battery but exposes the wK to check danger.Theme White Knight Wheel [the wSe4 moves to eight positions. Task!]. The lifting of this Knight fires the battery and creates eight threats.Theme Pseudo-Fleck : [The multiple key-threats are separated with eight from the black defences]. It is a Pseudo-Fleck because there are black moves not separating the key-threats.
Duel Black-White. There are mates with mirror symmetry.

One of our readers, Alotan, has informed us that this problem is anticipated: "The #6 (Νο.629) reminds me of something. A search in WinChloe gives the (Kh1, Rf2, Sf3 - Kd1), #6, Hilmar Ebert, Problem 1977: 1.Ra2! etc.. With such a few pieces, it is almost impossible to avoid anticipation. Especially for orthodox problems, which are almost exhausted".
These things happen! We will continue with other compositions of Nikos Pergialis.

Ont he occasion of the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Hungarian chess-problem
composer candidate-master József BAJTAY and the 60th anniversary of the birth of the
Hungarian 1st-class chess-problem composer László SZABÓ, a memorial tourney will be
held in the following classes:
I.: Selfmates in 11 or more moves. Free theme. Judge József PÁSZTOR.
II.: Helpmates in 4 or more moves. Free theme. Judge: János CSÁK.
Entries, with diagram, full solution and name(s) and adress(es) of author(s), should be sent to
the organizer: Béla MAJOROS at majoroschess@gmail.com .
Deadline for entries: 31 December 2012

Sunday, November 11, 2012

In a Greek blog we saw a comment about pawn promotion, where it seems that subpromotion is not important:
"...we promote almost always to Queen. ... The promotion to another piece has no meaning, because their moves is a subset of the Queen moves."

We have repeaterly given examples where we do not win by getting more power, but by getting the proper piece. In the theme AUW (=Allumwandlung, all the promotions) especially, we have seen many compositions where all the promotions occur in one variation or in more variations during the solutions.

Remember something that Darwin said, that "in life survives not the strongest species, nor the more clever, but the most adaptive to its environment."

We will see here four miniature compositions by Nikos Pergialis, where the white pawns start from their initial positions and reach a promotion square (this is the theme Excelsior), and they must be promoted to a different piece in each problem to satisfy the stipulation, helpmate in six moves. In some compositions we have Double Excelsior, where pawns of both colors are promoted.

Exercises of the day

Every day the website www.shredderchess.com offers to the readers of the blogs three easy chess exercises. They are given in three levels of difficulty, (L1, L2, and L3), and you may give the solution by moving the pieces with the mouse pointer. Below the diagram is then shown if the answer is correct or not.

If you miss OTB play...

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